


Lovely Ghost

by vivaldis_lover



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, First Kisses, Fluff, Kind of Fantasy AU, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of Michemil, Slow Build, Some Family Issues, Strangers to Lovers, Tags May Change, no skating, some biphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-11-10 11:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11126469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivaldis_lover/pseuds/vivaldis_lover
Summary: Mila is twenty and she has just moved out of her parents house. The small apartment she has rented is nice and comfortable. She could get used to live there. If it wasn’t for a small inconvenience: her apartment is haunted.Sharing a flat with a ghost is no fun. Especially when you're having romantic problems and your guest is still not over his lover from the nineteenth century





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I kept on wondering if MIla is out of character in this, but whatever. I find Sara easier to write. Still, I hope she's not that out of character. I'll try to update weekly.

Mila took a look around the room, the jacket still on, her backpack hanging from one shoulder and a box with her belongings in her arms. Most of her stuff was already in the new house; only her sewing kit and a few old schoolbooks were missing. It was a nice bachelor apartment, the one she had found. It was small, but not too cramped. Just perfect for her, a university student who worked part-time in a restaurant as a waitress and had just moved out of her parent’s house. And that Saturday morning was the perfect time to finish moving.

She went to her bed to drop the backpack and the box, then took off her jacket and the shoes and sat on the floor. In the kitchenette, the flatware lay on the counter, waiting to be put away. All her clothes were temporarily placed in boxes, hidden in the closet. In general, the apartment looked incomplete and half-way done. Mila couldn’t wait to personalize her little space and make it her own, but a knot in her throat painfully reminded her why she was there and not in her room. Despite the unbearable situation in her family, she still wished she hadn’t had to move, but that felt like the only solution, at the moment.

She eventually got up from the floor, stretched and decided to put some stuff in order, to get her mind off those discouraging thoughts. First of all, she went for the flatware, which was the quickest to set, then the clothes. She saved for last her sewing kit, complete with the machine, a few books, a couple of posters and a stuffed bear. That animal had been with her for the last ten years of her life and by then it was almost falling to pieces. She never failed to put it together and, although she felt stupid and childish for that, she was not able to get rid of it.

She sat on the floor again, when she decided where to hang her posters, trying to imagine where they looked better. The one she was holding was a reproduction of Le Chat Noir, that a friend had brought from Paris three years before, on her request.

In that moment she felt it the first time. A shiver running down her spine, as if a draft of cold air had just penetrated her clothes. She glanced around and made a mental note of looking for the source.

A few minutes later she was in the bathroom, washing her hands and face. Drying her face off, for a moment she thought she saw someone in the mirror, behind her. She quickly turned around and then told herself she was stupid for thinking, even for an instant, that there was another person with her in the room. But she went to the kitchenette with a strange feeling.

Her phone chimed: it was a text from Yuri.

_“u ok, baba? do u still like the house?”_

Yuri Plisetsky was the first person she had come out to, two years before. They knew each other because their parents were friends and they got along well. Yuri didn’t have a lot of friends, actually, and that was mostly due to his hostile attitude. He seemed to tolerate Mila’s presence most of the time, but when she had found herself in a difficult situation after coming out as bisexual to her parents, he had offered his kind of awkward and clumsy support. He was also the friend who brought her the poster from Paris.

 _“I’m fine, but you still need to learn how to spell”_ she typed.

_“shut up, youre not my teacher”_

She smiled at her phone and put it away to make some coffee. She waited for the water to boil, put in it a couple of spoons of instant coffee and stirred. As she took a cup, she thought about all the chores waiting for her. It was better to prepare a schedule, before accidentally forgetting to do the laundry and running out of clothes.

She turned, cup in her hand, to go lie on her bed for a moment, but she froze.

There was a man standing in front of her.

The neighbors would have remembered that as the loudest screech they’d ever heard. After a few seconds a couple knocked on her door and she had to explain that she was not being murdered.

“You dropped a box on your foot,” the man repeated, clearly not convinced.

“Yeah. Super heavy. Full of books. Sorry for disturbing you,” she said, laughing awkwardly, and faked a limp.

The couple was still not convinced, but they left her alone, probably thinking she was going to be a really weird neighbor. Mila exhaled, closing the door and resting her head against the wood for a moment. Then she turned, with a determined expression on her face, to _whatever_ was standing in the middle of the room. The cup lay broken on the floor, the coffee spilled everywhere.

In the few seconds it took the neighbors to arrive, she had noticed that the man seemed strange. She now realized that it was because she could see _through_ him. Like a ghost.

To be completely honest, the _thing_ had looked quite surprised too, when she had screamed. Clearly, he was not expecting her to be able to see him.

_“What. The actual. Fuck.”_

What definitely looked like a ghost was walking – or better, floating – around the house, as if he was new there, checking the new bed sheets and her books. A ghost. In her house.

She felt a shiver running up her spine, as she pressed her back against the door and looked at her guest. She tried to control the surge of panic rising inside her – although she had to compliment herself, for maintaining at least a tenth of her composure, talking with her neighbors.

She was not prepared to deal with that kind of situation. What could she say to a ghost?

“What are you doing here?” she asked. It was probably the dumbest thing she could choose to say. Only one spot above asking if the guy was paying the rent. To be fair, that was all her shocked mind was able to conceive at the moment.

The thing turned to her with a carefree and confused expression. “What do mean ‘what are you doing here’? I live here!” he exclaimed, in a weak Russian accent. “I’ve been living here for the last hundred and twenty-five years!”

The two stared at each other. For someone who claimed to be older than a hundred years old, he seemed to be wearing clothes that were quite fashionable. The colors were hard to distinguish, but he appeared to have silver hair, falling on his left eye. The brightest element about him were his eyes, blue and surprisingly warm.

 _“I’m hallucinating. There must have been something in that coffee. Ghosts are not real,”_ she thought, taking her head in her hands. _“I can’t take care of myself. I must have accidentally poisoned my own food. I’m gonna die here, alone.”_

Seeing her so dejected, the man got closer to Mila and put a hand on her shoulder, as if he was trying to comfort her. But the moment he touched her, a violent shiver shook her.

“You’re so cold!” she cried out.

The ghost jumped back, scared by her reaction and hurt. “I just wanted to pat you!”

“Well, don’t! You’re as cold as a corpse!”

“Well, I _am_ dead,” he replied.

Mila walked a couple of times around the apartment, trying to convince herself that it was all in her head. But the ghost’s touch had felt pretty real, strangely. Or at least the shiver was. She sighed. As a kid, she used to love ghost stories. Adore them. Her parents used to search far and wide in all the libraries and bookshops to find new tales for her. For a while she had wished they were real.

But she had never, ever wished to find one in her newly rented apartment.

“Okay. This is crazy, but I think I’ll have to accept that you’re real,” she said. “And even if you’re not, I’ll have to indulge my imagination. At least now I have someone to talk to.”

The ghost listened carefully to her, silent and ridiculously serious.           

“Do you have a name?” asked Mila.

His face lighted up. It was probably the first time someone asked that question in a while. “Viktor! Viktor Evgenievich Nikiforov, born and raised in Russia, traveled around Europe and arrived here in eighteen eighty-five. And may I ask what is your name?”

“Mila Babicheva.” She spared him the explanation of how she had ended up there.

“Oh, you’re Russian too?” he asked excited.

“I am,” she answered.

Viktor pirouetted around the room, ecstatic. “Finally someone who can see me _and_ who’s Russian! It must be my birthday!”

Mila took her head between her hands again. This whole _taking care of herself_ was going to be even more difficult than she had imagined.

*

Sara walked around the old theatre, careful not to make the faintest sound. She was sure she had seen someone wandering around in the building the day before, but when she had called them, they had run away so quickly, it had almost looked like they had vanished into thin air. And now she was there to make sure she hadn’t imagined everything, which was actually probable. What she had seen was nothing more of a shadow behind the glass doors of the entrance, after all.

She had to be quick. She didn’t want Michele to wait for too long. She positioned the strap of her gym bag better on her shoulder and gripped the torch tightly.

The beam of light moved around, illuminating the rows of empty seats. Suddenly she felt incredibly brave for being there, but also really irresponsible. Anything could happen to her. Maybe there was someone waiting for her, to assault her.

 _“I should have told Mickey where I am,”_ she though with a hint of regret. Still, she went on with her search.

After practice, her muscles still ached ad her sweaty hair where tied up in a ponytail. She had changed from the clothes she had used for training, but what she was wearing was still sportswear, too tired to care about wearing something nicer.

Eventually she reached the stage and she finally saw them.

They were staring at her from behind the curtain, only partially hidden. This time, they did not run. Sara had to put a hand on her mouth to suppress a cry of surprise, afraid it might scare them. Both of them stood like that for a few seconds, staring at each other, before the thing decided to move towards her, slowly. Now, she could see that they were a man. His messy black hair were long enough to fall over his brown eyes, eyes that were circled by a pair of old-fashioned glasses. He was wearing a long coat and a scarf, strangely, but even more strange was the fact that he was not casting a shadow. She could see through him.

Sara thought that she was supposed to freak out because of it, but somehow, it didn’t shock her. She was probably so dazed that her mind had went numb.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man took a couple more steps and sat on the edge of the stage, looking around confused.

“I think my name is Yuuri,” he said and his voice sounded extremely sweet, but uncertain.

“You think?”

She got closer to him, feeling bold. She was accepting the fact that she was in the presence of a ghost quite calmly. Yuuri wasn’t paying attention to her, his gaze lost somewhere in the distance.

“I don’t remember a lot. A lot of time has passed and no one ever came here. You’re the first person I meet in a long time,” he explained.

Sara sat in the middle of the front row, the light still fixed on him. He didn’t look threatening. She actually felt quite relaxed in his company. Yuuri gave off a sense of weird familiarity. “For how long have you been here?”

The man frowned, trying to recall how many years have passed. “More than a hundred years? Could be more, could be less. I’m not sure. I don’t remember the year we’re in.”

He spoke slowly, with a weak Japanese accent. “And you?” he asked. “Who are you?”

“My name in Sara Crispino. As for the year, it’s two thousand sixteen,” she said.

He gasped. “So, all the that time _really_ passed. I thought I was just bored.”

She looked at his old fashioned clothes and shoes. “You’re from Japan, right?”

“I am, I think. And you? You don’t sound British,” he pointed out.

“I’m from Italy.”

He smiled. “Italy! I would have liked to go there with someone. I never did, though. And now I can’t move from here,” he sighed, with a hint of regret in his voice.

Sara wondered if she was going crazy. She wondered if Mickey was going to find her in the company of a ghost or talking alone in an empty theatre. She was not sure which scenario was better.

Almost as if she summoned him, she heard Michele’s voice calling her name in the distance. The moment Yuuri heard the voice, he run away, or better, disappeared. He was so fast, she couldn’t even ask him to wait.

“Sara, are you there?”

“I’m here!” she answered. She could feel his relief from across the room.

Her brother appeared from the end of the theatre hall, a fit young man with brown hair and olive skin, identical to her but taller. “Finally I found you! What are you doing here, alone? Something could have happened to you!”

“I just thought I saw someone.” She sighed. “Something could have happened, yes, but it didn’t. Really, you should stop worrying, I can take care of myself, Mickey.”

He escorted her outside, without saying anything more about it.

“By the way,” he asked. “I think I heard you talking with someone before. Were you really alone there?”

Sara reflected for a moment about what to tell him. Michele was not going to accept the existence of a ghost as easily as she did and would have probably worried way too much about it. Maybe he would have thought she was having hallucinations.

“Yes. I was just talking to myself,” she said.

 _“I’ll come back tomorrow, Yuuri,”_ she tought. He was going to be her little secret.


	2. Chapter 2

Mila woke up the next morning slightly confused and with a stiff neck. She must have slept in a weird position. It took her a moment to realize where she was, and when she did, she groaned. It was her haunted apartment.

“Good morning!” exclaimed Viktor when he saw her waking up.

The girl rubbed her eyes and got out of bed, craving coffee. Her flat-mate floated around her.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

“Is there anything you _can_ do?” she replied. In the time it took her to fall asleep the night before, she had wondered what Viktor did all the time, if he just wandered around or if there were activities he could do. Like doing the dishes. Or cleaning the apartment.

She felt a bit guilty about the thought of exploiting the ghost, but, after all, it was not like Viktor had anything to do. He was probably bored, since he could do nothing but float around for the whole day.

The man reflected about the question a few seconds. “I can knock stuff off the tables.”

Mila snorted. “Anything practical? Look, I’m gonna be honest. I’m a university student and I work too. I was wondering if you were able to take care of the house, so that I can avoid doing at least that.”

Viktor shrugged. “I never thought about it. I can push light stuff around, but I don’t think I can lift anything.”

She sighed. “Never mind.”

After getting dressed, she took out her textbooks to study for a few hours. Thankfully, Viktor could be a very quiet flat-mate, despite his cheerful personality, so she had all the silence she needed to concentrate. Sometimes her mind went to Yuri – or Yurio, as she liked to call him – and her parents, wondering what they were thinking on their first day without their daughter in the house.

At five, she stopped studying and got ready for her evening shift at the restaurant. Without that job, and without the tuition fee loan, she wouldn’t have been able to move out.

“You work?” asked Viktor.

“As waitress, yeah. What did you do when you were alive?” She was curious about Viktor’s past, if he could remember it. They have chatted a bit the day before, but he seemed to be a little confused and couldn’t remember a lot of his life.

“I know this! I was an artist. Not the job my parents would have wanted me to do, actually. But they left me with a fortune, after they died. So I could follow my passion for painting and stop pretending I was interested in coal,” he explained.

“What kind of artist?”

“A painter.”

“Lucky you. If I had a fortune I would probably start travelling. Hasta la vista! Nobody would see me ever again.” As she was saying this, she noticed he was observing her poster of Le Chat Noir. It was the third time she saw him looking at it.

“You really like that picture, don’t you?” she asked.

“I think I went there, long ago. When it first opened. Ah, all the people you could meet there, all the artists! I don’t know what I would give to visit it once again,” he sighed. Then he frowned. “Although, I was not alone when I went. But I don’t remember who was with me.”

They had to interrupt their conversation. Mila made him promise to think more about his time in Paris and tell her about it when she came home. If he couldn’t clean the house, he could, at least, entertain her.

As Mila started her shift at the restaurant, in another area of the city, an Italian girl had just finished training and had every intention of getting into an abandoned theatre once again. Sara told her brother to not wait for her and go home, pretending she just had to go buy something.

When she saw Michele driving away, Sara took out her torch and introduced herself in the old building. The thought of Yuuri had bugged her the whole day, even during their extra training session. She needed to know more about him and his past.

She walked into the hall quietly, but not as careful as the day before, and she went straight to the stage.

“Yuuri?”

The torch illuminated the rows of seats and she found him sitting in the front row, examining his fingers. He turned his head when he heard his name and smiled faintly.

“I was not expecting you to come again,” he admitted. “But thank you for it. You keep me company.”

“Are you kidding me?” she said, dropping her bag on the floor and sitting beside him. “How could I pass the opportunity of chatting with a ghost? Like, when is it gonna happen again?”

He smiled. “I may not be that interesting.”

“Don’t put yourself down. You’re a ghost and you were alive more than a hundred years ago. Everything you remember is gonna be interesting,” she told him.

He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. “That could be a problem, Sara – can I call you by your first name? I don’t remember a lot. There’s a lot of confusion in my head.”

“First, of course you can call me just Sara. Second, don’t worry about that. Let’s start with something you’re sure about, if there is it.”

He stared at the empty stage, frowning. “Well, I’m Japanese. That, I’m sure,” he said, with an embarrassed laugh. Before they went on with him, he asked Sara a couple of questions too – about her family, if she had any siblings…

“And what do you do in your life?”

“I’m a figure skater!” she answered, enthusiastically. “I skate with my brother, we do pair dancing. Right now we’re getting ready for a show.”

Yuuri nodded. “Sounds fun. I don’t think I’ve ever skated in my life.”

“Do you remember your job? What did you do for a living?”

Talking with the girl, Yuuri realized, was helping him putting some order in his fragmented memories. He explained to her that he used a merchant, but at some point he had left his business to a friend and her husband for a few years, so that they could take care of it. The irritating thing was that he could not remember _why_ he had left his business.

“Don’t worry,” Sara told him. “That was already enough.”

She checked the time and realized she had to go, before she made Michele worry. It was already surprising that he had gone home without her. She said goodbye to Yuuri and promised to come the day after.

He smiled. “I’ll be waiting.”

**

“Are you free next Monday?”

Mila raised her eyes from the textbook and looked at Emil, one of her friends. Classes were finished and they were studying in the library. A week had passed since Mila had moved out.

The two of them had met during their first year of university, because they were both friends with Otabek from Kazakhstan. Their friendship ended up being a disgrace for Otabek, who, in the last two years, had taken part in more social events than in his whole life. He could fight against one extrovert, but not against two.

“I should be, why?” she asked.

“Because there’s a show I’d like to see and I have two tickets. I’d ask Otabek, but he already has another thing,“ he explained. “And I don’t wanna go alone.”

She closed the book. “What show is it?”

“An ice show!”

He saw Mila’s perplexed expression and clarified that he was not particularly interested in figure skating, but he had met two of the skaters in the show, a couple of Italian twins, years before, during a summer trip to Italy. He still remembered them and he was curious to see how they changed, and, if they got the chance to talk, if they remembered him.

“Plus, it could be a fun and unusual way to spend and evening,” he pointed out.

Eventually she accepted. She was not passionate about skating, but to be fair, she had never watched anything about it, so there was no way to know if she liked it or not. On her way home she stopped by a library and decided to take a stroll through the shelves and look at the books. She was not planning on buying anything, but walking there relaxed her. She went to the fantasy section and took out The Neverending Story, a book she had never read but had always wanted to. She flipped the pages, careful not to read anything.

Out of the corner of the eye, she saw someone coming beside her. That person stopped to check a couple of books, so she didn’t pay attention to them. She closed the novel and stared at the cover for a couple of seconds, before putting it back onto the shelf.

“Oh, it’s The Neverending Story! It’s one of favourite,” a female voice said.

Mila turned to the person standing beside her. It was a olive-skinned girl with long black hair, slightly shorter than her. Her eyes were sparkling and she appeared to be somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. She was wearing comfortable clothes and looked like someone who had just got out of the gym. Mila was not used to being approached by strangers and, when it happened, the strangers were generally men.

“Do you want to read it? You should. It’s really beautiful,” the girl went on. She spoke with a thick Italian accent.

“Uhm…” Mila hesitated. “I want to, but I don’t really have the money to buy it, right now,” she explained and shrugged. “I’ll look for it in the library.”

“Oh, no! That’s the kind of book you need to have!” She grabbed it and went to the cashier. “I’ve decided. I’m buying it for you.”

Mila ran behind her, bewildered. “Look,” she tried to say. “This is very nice of you – incredibly so. But it’s also embarrassing, I mean, I don’t even know your name. I can’t let you buy stuff for me.”

“I’m Sara. And please,” she said, suddenly turning to Mila, who almost bumped into her. “You’d make really happy, if you were to accept this book. It’s just a book. I know it sounds stupid, but I feel you’re someone who could appreciate it. And you looked like you really wanted to read it. Please.”

Sara’s eyes were so pleading, Mila felt her resistances crumbling. The whole situation was surreal. She’d never heard of a stranger buying a book for someone else.

But the girl was so pretty, it almost felt a crime to tell her no.

After weighing the pros and cons, Mila decided to let the girl buy the book for her. She didn’t appear interested in getting something from her in return. She was not even asking for her name.

She sighed. “Okay. Thank you,” she added. She didn’t know what else to say.

Sara smiled and went to pay for it. Out of the bookshop, she handed the paper bag. “Here it is. I hope you’ll enjoy it.”

Mila took it and looked at the ground, shifting her weight from one feet to the other. “Thank you, again. This feels surreal. Although,” she paused. “Although it’s not the weirdest thing that happened to me this week.”

Sara laughed. “C’mon, it’s not _that_ weird! Can I ask you just your name?”

“I’m Mila.”

Sara repeated it a couple of time, under her breath. “That’s a nice name.” Clearly she wanted to ask more questions, but she didn’t. Instead, she waved, turning around. “Goodbye, Mila! Maybe we’ll meet again!”

She waved back, watched Sara walk around the corner and then took out the book.

 _“Well,”_ she tought. _“Nothing could ever be weirder than Viktor.”_

At home she was welcomed by the excited ghost. After so many years of not talking to anyone, he now suffered for any minute he spent alone, waiting for Mila to return.

“You’re back!” he exclaimed, when she entered the apartment. He tried to hug her, but ended up walking through Mila and causing the girl to shiver violently.

“You need to remember this: no touching. I don’t want to feel like I’m in Siberia every time I come home.”

“Sorry.”

She told him about her day and the girl who bought her the book. Living with the ghost was getting worryingly normal for Mila. She sometimes had to remind herself that Emil and Otabek didn’t know about him, and they didn’t have to know. They would have thought she was going crazy.

But as the week unfolded, Viktor’s presence was getting enjoyable. There was still a lot he didn’t remember, but he could offer some insight about the life in the nineteenth century, with just a few small details. He was becoming curious about her life too. In return, she told him about new technologies, the history of the twentieth century and all the stuff he missed, confined in the apartment.

“You never told me why you live alone,” he said Wednesday night, as she was getting ready for bed.

She sighed. “It’s complicated. For now, you just need to know that there were irreconcilable differences between me and my parents. Stuff they couldn’t come to terms with. It was better to leave.”

She turned to Viktor, who was sitting on the counter, and saw that he had become suddenly somber. “Viktor?”

He shook his head. “It’s nothing. You just made me remember something unpleasant.”

He didn’t want to say what that was, though. She went to bed.

Monday finally came. After university, Emil took his parents car to reach the center of the city and after a while they arrived at the ice rink. To pass the time Emil told her about the summer when he had met the Italian twins. He was still a kid and the twins were already teenagers, since they were four years older than him, but they had accepted his presence anyway.

“And you? How is living on your own?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Tiring,” she complained. “But, honestly? Mentally I’m already feeling ten times better than before. Living with my parents was not possible anymore.”

“I’m happy for you. If you ever need help, just ask me, ok? Or Otabek,” he said. “I know you’re terribly stubborn, but you shouldn’t be always the one helping other. Promise me you’ll ask our help.”

She chuckled. “I promise.”

Once inside the ice rink, they found their seats and waited for the show to start. Finally the lights went out, except for the ones pointed on the ice, and the skaters were announced. The first to come on the ice were the twins, welcomed by loud cheering. Mila and Emil were close enough to see their faces.

She almost had a heart attack.

“I know her!” she exclaimed, earning a couple of glares for the other spectators. She turned to Emil. “I know her,” she repeated, whispering.

He frowned. “How?”

“I didn’t tell you about last week, right? She bought me a book I was looking at, because it’s her favourite,” Mila explained.

“The Neverending Story?” Emil asked.

“Yes, that one!”

He looked at the twins dancing on the ice to a music he didn’t know and shrugged. “Sounds like something Sara would do. Well, this means we _have_ to talk to them after this show.” He squinted. “Also because Michele got really hot. Good job, puberty.”

She stifled a laugh.

As the show went on, she had to admit it was more fun than what she had previously imagined. The music was catchy, the dresses nice and the skaters skilled, although even she could see that the twins were on another level. Right before the end, Emil reminded her that Sara and Michele were signing autographs after the show, so they could try and talk to them. Mila agreed.

There were a lot of people queuing to get the autographs of the twins, or at least more than Sara expected. They patiently waited for their turn and Emil took advantage of the situation to tell her that they had come second at last year’s World Championship.

It was almost their turn. Sara looked up from the piece of paper she was signing for the person before Mila and Emil and met the girl’s eyes. Her face lighted up and mouthed Mila’s name. Sara’s eyes then turned to Emil and she slightly squinted, with the typical expression of someone who’s trying to remember where they saw you. She nudged Michele and pointed at them.

When it was finally their turn, Sara turned to Emil.

“Your name is Emil Nekola, right? Summer, nine years ago?” she asked.

“That would be me, yes,” he answered, handing out the ticket of the show to sign. “I was hoping you’d remember me,” he added with a smile. This earned him a glare form Michele.

Mila was standing behind Emil, watching the scene absentmindedly. She noticed Michele’s glare. Thanks to Emil, she already knew that the man was extremely protective of his sister. She repressed a sigh.

 _“Emil’s the last person you have to worry about, boy. He’s gay, Michele. Gaaaay. He’s so gay he’s basically a walking rainbow flag. You should probably worry more about me hitting on your sister,”_ she tought. _“She’s really cute.”_

“Now,” said Sara. “We can’t keep the others waiting, but if you have the patience and the time, we can meet outside when we are finished with this.” She smiled at Mila.

“I like the idea,” said Emil.

And so they found themselves outside in the cold, waiting for the twins.

 _“What am I doing here?”_ she wondered. _“I’m not even friends with the twins. Emil is the one who knows them.”_

But, deep down, she really wanted to tell Sara how much she was enjoying the book. So she decided to wait.


	3. Chapter 3

“Are you planning on hitting on Michele or what?” asked Mila.

Emil laughed. “Mila, you think I would hit on a guy I met when I was eleven and that I haven’t met in almost ten years?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. But I wanna see how this evening goes, first. If everything goes well, then, maybe, I’ll invite him to have dinner or something,” he explained.

“I don’t know if an evening is enough to decide that. Michele doesn’t look like the friendly type,” she objected.

“I’m friendly enough for both of us.”

“True.”

They had to wait for a while, but the evening was not too cold and Emil was good company, as usual. The time spent waiting was bearable. Mila was just starting to wonder if it was worth it, when the twins arrived. They still had traces of make up on their faces, but they had changed into more comfortable clothes. Sara flashed her a huge smile when their eyes met. Mila had never met such a cheerful girl.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting,” said Michele, serious.

Emil gave him a pat on the arm. “Don’t worry, we did it willingly,” he said with a smile.

Mila wondered if Emil had noticed the murderous look passing behind Michele’s eyes, when he had touched him. Probably not.

There was some awkwardness in the air. The first thing Mila decided to do was to properly introduce herself to Michele, the only one she was meeting for the first time. She tried at first to include everyone in a conversation, but it didn’t take long before she realized she was talking mostly to Sara. And Emil, on the other hand, was monopolizing Michele.

She gave up.

“Okay,” she said, looking at the boys, so focused on each other. “I’ll stop pretending we’re all talking together.”

She smiled and cheered for Emil, in silence.

Sara giggled. “So now I can ask you what do you think of the book I gave you?” she asked.

“It’s _amazing_ ,” said Mila. “It feels like someone took all their weirdest dreams and put them together to create that fantasy world.”

“Makes you wish you had that kind of imagination, doesn’t it?”

“Yes!”

Starting with the book made their conversation flow more easily. It was something they both already knew and shared a liking for. She glanced at Michele and Emil. Emil was explaining something with excitement and it looked like Michele was listening with curiosity. Well, the last thing you could say about Emil was that he was not entertaining.

Sara saw her looking at them.

“Emil hasn’t changed a bit,” she said. “Although now he has a beard.”

“When he shaves it, he still looks like a baby, though,” said Mila, laughing. “When did you and Michele started skating?” she asked, changing subject.

“We were eight. When we started skating, I thought I would have switched to single skating, after a while. But then we started having good results in competitions. And there was not really a reason to change. I also really like skating with Michele, so I didn’t feel the need to distance myself from him.”

Mila nodded. There wasn’t anything to add.

“And you? I don’t know anything about you! What you study, what you do in your free time…”

“It feels like you’re asking me to make a presentation about myself, like the one they make you write when you’re learning a new language,” joked Mila.

“Okay,” sighed Sara, pretending to be annoyed. “What do you study?”

“Economics.”

Sara whistled. “I thought you were the literature kind.”

“I thought about that, but in the end I settled for economics,” she explained.

She told her about her studies, and how she had met Otabek and Emil, and she also talked a little about her job. She remained really vague about her family situation. It was not the right moment to talk about her problems with her parents. Sara grasped that there was something Mila didn’t want to say and didn’t insist.

“Also, when I have some free time, I like to sew and create t-shirts and dresses,” she finished.

Sara looked at her with admiration. “Really? I’ve always wanted to learn, but I don’t know where to start.”

“I could teach you," she said, casually.

Sara smiled and didn’t reply. Mila noticed her directing her gaze somewhere above her head. She had a feeling Sara was looking at her hair.

 _“Did I wash it?”_ she asked herself, suddenly self-conscious.

“Oh, before I forget,” said Sara, breaking the silence. “Give me your phone number. I want to know when you finish the book.”

Mila was more than happy to exchange numbers. Since they had said everything about The Neverending Story, their conversation moved on their favorite authors – they shared some of them and then there were some names Mila had never heard of. Most of those she didn’t know were Italian authors.

She would have probably stayed there for the whole night, if she hadn’t remembered that she, and Emil, had class the next day. Also, trying to drag away Emil was going to take a lot of time. Stopping that man from talking with someone was like trying to tear mussels off rocks. He didn’t let go easily.

When she finally managed to separate Emil from Michele, she wished the twins goodnight and pushed Emil towards his car. Glancing over her shoulder one last time, she saw Sara mimicking having a telephone in her hands.

“Remember to tell me when you finish!”

“I will!” replied Mila and winked.

When she finally came home, it was one in the morning. Emil hadn’t stopped talking about Michele for the whole trip, but Mila was too busy thinking about Sara to listen to him. Walking in her apartment, Viktor welcomed her with his usual cheer. She could almost see an imaginary tail wagging. She didn’t pay a lot of attention to the ghost, though. She was over the moon.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so comfortable with someone, so early. Talking with Sara was the easiest thing she had ever done. Something about her gave off a strange sense of familiarity.

“Where were you?” asked Viktor.

“We went to an ice show. But right now I’m too tired to tell you anything, we’ll talk tomorrow,” she said. Turning off the light. “’night, Viktor.”

In the darkness, the ghost looked at the girl falling asleep, reflecting about his situation. He had been stuck in the physical world for so long, memories were not clear anymore. The faces of all those who had lived in that apartment were blurred together and he couldn’t even distinguish them anymore.

Not with Mila. Around her, helped by the fact that, somehow, she could see him, he felt more real. Thoughts were more clear. He walked around the room, went through the door and took a stroll down the hallway. He had visited other houses, sometimes, observed families and couples and single people, but he had always felt the need to come back to the apartment that was now occupied by Mila. He had never understood why. There was something that tied him to that place. He knew it was something related to when he was alive.

He had left something unfinished. The problem was figuring out what.

He went back to his house.

*

Back home, Sara threw herself on her bed and let out a satisfied sigh. The last thing she had been expecting was to see Mila at the show. She didn’t expect to see her at all, after last Monday. And yet, it turned out she was friend with that guy Emil, whom they had met years before.

“Coincidences, huh?” she said to her brother.

Michele’s tired face came out of the bathroom. “Were you talking to me?”

“No, with the pillow.”

He raised an eyebrow and snorted. “Never mind. You were thinking about the chances of meeting Emil here, right?”

“Him _and_ that girl, Mila,” she specified. “What was your impression of her? She seems smart.” She went on, not letting Michele answer. “And she’s hardworking. Also, have you seen her hair? It looked so soft, I really wanted to touch it.”

Michele let his sister talk, while brushing his teeth. There was no way to stop her when she started.

It made him happy that she was that enthusiastic about the evening, but he was really tired and all he wanted to do was to lie down and sleep. He just didn’t have the heart to tell her. He was too weak when it came to his sister.

Luckily for him, she surrendered to tiredness. She said goodnight in a drowsy voice and let her head fall on the pillow. Michele looked at her peaceful face for a moment and then turned off the light.

The twins shared an apartment when they were training abroad and not in their homeland. They were so used to share rooms when they were travelling, that it felt almost strange to sleep in different ones.

As Sara fell asleep, her mind went to the new number in her address book.

The next morning she woke up before Michele. After getting dressed, she went to the ice rink, to enjoy skating freely and without the pressure of the show for a while, and then sneaked into the old theatre to see Yuuri. She felt a bit guilty when she was not keeping him company. She was sure he felt lonely.

She hadn’t stopped thinking about Mila for the whole day. Sometimes she took out her phone tempted to write to her. Two things stopped her: the fear of annoying her and the fear of not knowing what to say. She didn’t want to be pushy with someone she had just met, no matter how well they got along the evening before. So she ended up staring at the screen for a few minutes, before putting it away again. That afternoon she was joined by Michele and they took a walk along the seafront. They both agreed that the smell of the ocean was not as good as the smell of the Mediterranean sea.

“You didn’t sleep much,” observed Michele.

Sara shrugged. “But I slept well.”

“What did you do?”

“I went to the ice rink. Relaxed. Had lunch. You?”

He rubbed his eyes. “Emil called me. He wanted to know what we’re doing the next few days and if we wanted to meet again, before we leave the city and disappear for another ten years, he said.” He paused. “He’s still the same. Just as pushy as when he was eleven,” he grumbled.

Sara chuckled. From  “What did you tell him?”

“I told him I had to ask you if you were free.”

She laughed. “You know damn well that I’m free! Where you just looking for an excuse to not answer?”

Michele hunched. “What if he hits on you again?”

Sara sighed. “Mickey, he was not hitting on me. He just said he hoped I remembered him. And he spent most of the evening talking to you. No, not most: _all of_ it. Also, if he really wanted to hit on me, I could tell him I’m not interested in men. It’s not a secret _you_ have to protect.”

Michele looked like he wanted to answer back, but he didn’t say anything.

In that moment her phone chimed. Sara took it out and almost let it fall when she saw the name on the screen: it was Mila.

_“Hi, I hope I’m not bothering you. I’m Mila, I just wanted to make sure this is the right number”_

She told herself her reaction was stupid. Mila just wanted to see if she had wrote down the right number. It was a text with little meaning, not a code that needed to be cracked. She was certainly waiting for her reply, calm and collected. She looked like a confident and laidback person, from what she had seen.

The truth was that Mila was almost biting her nails off, waiting for Sara to answer.

Sara quickly replied, adding a general ‘how are you?’, hoping it would get the conversation started.

It did. They texted almost the whole afternoon, sometimes with long pauses between one text and another, sometimes writing so fast that they didn’t let the other reply. They stopped only when Mila had to work. The kept on texting and calling each other for the whole week.

One evening, as she and Michele were having dinner, Sara took a decision.


	4. Chapter 4

“See you tomorrow, James,” said Mila, waving goodbye to a colleague. Her long day had finally ended. The shift hadn’t been particularly tiring, but she had eaten too little at lunch and now she was starving. Alone in front of the restaurant, she rummaged a bit in her bag, looked up and froze.

“Hi,” said Sara, shyly.

She was standing on the sidewalk, under the lamplight, clearly waiting for her. Mila stood speechless for a few seconds, her heart racing. Sara looked amazing, even more than she remembered. The black leggings she was wearing showed how lean and muscular her legs were, her hair was untied, for once, and fell smoothly over her shoulders and emphasized the shape of her face. A thin layer of make-up accentuated the amazing color of Sara’s eyes and her olive skin.

“What- hi!” she managed to say.

Sara stifled a laugh. “I didn’t think I would surprise you this much,” she admitted.

“It’s not that! It’s- nothing. Yeah, you surprised me.” Mila was well aware of how ridiculous she sounded. She just couldn’t control how ridiculously happy she was. And Sara was so stunning, she had a hard time thinking coherently.

“I hope you don’t mind if I accompany you home,” said the Italian girl. The other enthusiastically shook her head.

“Not at all!” exclaimed Mila. “But I have to eat something first,” she added.

Sara nodded and took Mila’s arm. “What do you want to eat?”

Mila pointed in front of her. “There’s a kebab place where I usually stop. It’s still open.”

Mila glanced at Sara’s arm. She was more expansive than most people, but not to the point of being physically affectionate with someone the – she counted – third time she met them.

As they walked down the street, Sara casually asked her about her evening. Mila told her the highlights of her shift – like the really rude costumer, or the guy who was a regular at the place and always tried to pay with coupons.

“I swear, he does this every time! I don’t know if he thinks he’s smart or something,” she said. Sara laughed.

When they reached the place, Mila tried to grab her wallet, but Sara stopped her.

“My treat?” she asked.

“No,” said Mila, in a peremptory voice. “You already bought me a book, when I didn’t even know you. If anything, I am the one who should offer you something!”

“Okay, no need to get angry!” said Sara, defensive.

“I’m not angry! You’re just too kind for your own good!”

Mila ended up paying for both of them. Sara, at first, had no intention of eating, but gave in to her cravings when she smelled fries. They sat on a bench outside the kebab place and watched the cars pass by. The wind blew quietly through the leaves of the tree planted in the flowerbed next to their bench and shook a few petals off the blossoming flowers. In front of them, the lamplight went on and off, clearly in need of reparation. Everything was quiet.

Mila tried her best to not completely embarrass herself while eating, but no matter how careful she was, she eventually stained her pants with the meat and the sauce.

“Shit,” she whispered.

Sara heard her and giggled. “It happens.”

“Do you have a napkin? I’m sorry. I’m so clumsy.”

Sara looked into her purse. “I’m actually impressed it took you this long.”

While Mila tried her best to remove the stains, Sara looked at the street, remembering a pastime she and her brother had. She nudged Mila and pointed towards a car that was going particularly slow.

“Why do you think it’s going so slow? I say it’s because he drank a bit too much and he doesn’t want to risk anything as he comes home to his wife and their daughter. He was out for dinner with his colleagues. He didn’t want to go, but he realized he had skipped those dinners too many times.”

Mila looked at her, confused. “Is this some kind of game?”

“Just something me and my brother used to do. To see who’s the more creative one.”

Mila smirked. “Careful, I’m competitive and I have a twisted imagination.”

In that moment, a car ran past them at full speed.

“I got this,” said Mila. “The guy was at his lover’s place and he told his wife he was going to have a beer with his friends. But he ended up staying too late. Now he wants to come home as quickly as possible, but he also has to think about a good excuse. His marriage is in trouble. He doesn’t want to get divorced, although his wife is gonna ask for it, soon.”

“Wow! We’re already going for stories about cheating?”

“Also his lover is a mistress and he loves bondage,” added Mila.

Sara burst out laughing. “I was not expecting this last part!”

“I have a dirty mind,” she said, before taking a bite of the kebab.

Everything was going so well, she couldn’t believe it. Her tiredness was gone. Sara was apparently having a good time too. She finished eating and they headed towards Mila’s apartment. She pointed out that Sara would have had to walk alone to her car, but Sara showed her that the car was pretty close, so she had nothing to worry about. They said goodbye and parted. Mila watched her until she got into her car and drove away.

When she walked into the apartment, she was beaming.

“You’re home!” exclaimed Viktor, when he saw her. He stopped a few steps from her. “What is that face? You look ecstatic.”

She dropped on the bed without answering and sighed.

“Oh, I know it,” he said, mischievously. “You’re in love.”

“I’m not!”

Viktor shook his head. “Girl, I’ve been in this house for more than a hundred years. I’ve seen a lot of things. I know what falling for someone looks like.”

Mila took her head in her hands. She was not in love, was she?

“Well, it’s too early to say I’m in love. But… but yeah, we can say I have a crush,” she admitted.

It would have been pointless to hide it from him. It was not like he could go around and tell people. Only problem: he was born in the nineteenth century. How well could he handle the fact that she was in love with another woman? He had lived for more than a hundred years as a ghost, though, so he must had seen some stuff.

“But you have to know that she’s a girl,” she said.

“Okay! So, what is her name? Her hobbies?”

Mila was at first taken aback, but then she crossed her arms and looked at Viktor with a cheeky smile. “Oh, what would you know about courting and flirting? I bet you don’t even know how to flirt anymore, if you ever knew how to do it.”

Victor pouted. “Look, it’s not like we didn’t know what courting is, okay? I don’t know what idea you have of the late nineteenth century, but we weren’t as naïve as you think.”

Mila chuckled. “Okay don’t get offended. So, her name’s Sara, she’s Italian and she’s an ice dancer,” she explained. Viktor listened carefully.

Bonding with the ghost was taking up a lot of time. Before she went on, she checked the time. When she saw the hour, she jumped. She quickly counted the hours she had left to sleep and decided that she would have skipped class the next day.

Seeing Mila talking so excitedly about her crush, made Viktor feel alive, but melancholic. There was something he missed. Someone. He had been in love, during his life cut too short by illness.

“Typhus fever,” he mumbled.

Mila, who was in the middle of describing how beautiful Sara’s eyes were, stopped abruptly. “Sorry, what?”

Viktor shrugged. “I just remembered how I died.”

“Oh.” She put her hands in her lap. “Well, it’s not a good thing if me talking makes you remember death.”

“It’s not your fault. It was just because of free associations.”

“Good. But I hope you’ll still remember it tomorrow, because now I’m really not in the mood for talking about death,” she said.

Viktor chuckled softly. “I can imagine.”

After Mila had gone to bed, Viktor floated around the floor for a while, thinking about his last moments. He had died alone. Not an ideal, peaceful death. He had thought about someone, before dying – well, actually before turning into a ghost.

His lover. He used to have a lover. He couldn’t remember his face, though. Or the sound of his voice or the way he walked. The only memory was the lingering feeling of soft hands wrapped around his face. He brought a hand up to his cheek, instinctively.

He had the feeling another, permanent, passing was coming.

*****

It was nice not having to wake up early. Even if Mila had actually tried to wake up and go to class, she would have probably slept through the alarm. And, after all, it was only the first time she skipped class, since the beginning of the semester.

“So, anyway, I was in Moscow when I died, and…”

She hid her head under the pillow, irritated. Even if she got used to Viktor, it a little bit of a surprise every morning, to remember that her roommate was dead.

“Viktor, it’s not the moment,” she told him.

“Sorry.”

She turned her back to him and tried to get some more sleep, but the guilt eventually pushed her out of bed to study. She made coffee, got dressed and sat at her desk. If she was not going to class, she could at least revise some notes. Viktor floated around the room, clearly distressed about something. She didn’t pay attention to him, though. She needed to study.

When she finally took a break to have lunch, she asked him what was stressing him. He explained that the day before, he had remembered not only his death, but also his lover – or better, that he used to have a lover. He couldn’t even recall his face and that was the source of his distress.

“But, Viktor,” she said. “That person is certainly dead, now. I don’t think it changes much, whether you remember him or not.”

He paced the floor. “But I feel it’s important! And I don’t know why.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Her phone ringed. It was Yuri.

“What’s wrong, kitten? You never call anyone,” she said, answering the call.

 _“Just to let you know, your parents are planning to set you up with someone,”_ replied Yuri, in his usual grumpy voice. Talking with Yuri was always like this: no pleasantries, no greetings. He went straight to the point.

“What?”

 _“They want to invite you to have lunch altogether this weekend, either Saturday or Sunday._ Casually _, there’s gonna be there the son of one of your dad’s friends. I’ve seen him in pictures, his teeth are so white they shine. Twenty-five, good job and good education. Sounds terribly boring,”_ he explained.

Mila listened carefully. “Thank you for telling me. But, what do they hope will happen?”

She could feel Yuri shrug. _“No idea. They probably hope you’ll fall in love madly with him and forget you like pussy too.”_

“Potty mouth. I told you, you shouldn’t use those words,” she scolded him, playfully.

_“Try to stop me. Okay, I told you. Now if you want to, I don’t know, fake your own death or something to avoid this, it’s up to you. Even though I’d like to see you.”_

She smiled. “Come and see me, sometimes. I still have to show you my new home. Also, I wanted to introduce you to Otabek. I think you two would be good friends.”

_“Okay. Bye, baba.”_

“Bye, kitty.”

She ended the call. Viktor was looking at her with curiosity. He didn’t even have to ask what was happening: Mila was already explaining everything. He listened to her and, together, they started thinking about a good plan.

“The options are two,” said Mila. “One is to make this the less awkward as possible. Go there late, eat, go away early with some excuse. Faking illness won’t work, they’ll just arrange the meeting for another week. The other option is to make this meeting as awkward as possible, so my parents will lose any desire to do that again.”

“If you bring someone, that could be easier,” suggested Viktor

Mila took her phone. “I know who I should call.”

*

Practice had ended and Sara was trying to sneak into the old theatre once again. Inside, Yuuri was waiting for her. It had been a few days since the last time she saw him. The first thing she did was talking to him about Mila, and how cool and funny she was. Yuuri was more than happy to listen to her. He felt alive, when he listened to Sara talk about her life.

After a while, she stopped talking to abruptly change the topic.

“Yuuri, I’m curious,” she said. “Why do you think you’re stuck here?”

“I’m waiting for someone,” he answered, confident.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I’ll know when I see that person.” He sounded really sure about that. She didn’t ask any more questions.

She went back to talking about Mila, but after a while her phone ringed.

“Speak of the devil!” said Sara, reading the name on the screen.

“Hey, Mila!” she said.

_“Sara, I need to ask you something, but I want to do it in person. Do you mind coming to the restaurant, tonight? At the same time you came yesterday.”_

Her voice was serious and Sara started to wonder if something happened. “Yeah, sure. No problem. Something’s wrong?”

 _“It’s a complicated situation, but nothing serious, don’t worry. I was just wondering if you could help me with something. But I’ll explain that later,”_ said Mila.

“Okay! So, see you later,” said Sara.

 _“See you later!”_ She sounded relieved.

She was pretty confused by the call, but she guessed that all her questions would have been answered that night.

“They did me wrong,” suddenly said Yuuri.

Sara turned to him. “What?”

“That person. They wronged me. And now I’m waiting for them to remedy what they did wrong,” he sighed.

He was not even talking to Sara anymore and the fact that she was there was totally irrelevant. He could have said the same things to the dusty seats. Suddenly, all he had in mind now was the picture of silver hair and a man’s back. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the details, but him memory only showed him how the man’s silver hair moved with the breeze.

He remembered Sara was there. “Sorry,” he said. “But I have a feeling this is really important for me.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, still confused.

“I think I’ll find peace, when they find me,” he added.

She had no idea what to tell him. The thought of Yuuri leaving made her sad. She liked his presence. But at the same time, whishing he would not go away, made her feel quite selfish. Yuuri had spent so much time waiting in that old theatre – because, apparently, he was unable to leave the place – that he probably just wanted to die completely, at that point.

She checked the time.

“I have to go now, Yuuri. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Of course,” he assured her, with his usual kind smile.

Walking out of the theatre, she felt weird. First Mila’s surprise call, then Yuuri’s sudden realization. Usually spending time with Yuuri helped her relax after a long day, but this time their meeting had been only confusing. She wondered if some other news was expecting her, like Michele telling her that he had a date.

“Emil asked me out on a date,” said her brother, as they were having dinner.

She dropped the fork. “You’re kidding me.”

Michele turned his head and tried to hide his reddening cheeks. He mumbled something unintelligible.

“Mickey, I can’t understand what you’re saying,” said Sara. She was excited for him: at the prime age of twenty-four, Michele had never dated anyone, too focused on his job and on her to care about other people. And his unfriendly attitude did not help him.

“I said, he was pretty persuasive,” repeated Michele.

He still refused to look her in the eyes. She found this extremely funny: she always told him everything about her love life, and sometimes she didn’t spare even the most intimate details. But Michele found embarrassing even telling her he had a date.

“I didn’t even know you two kept in touch! Why didn’t you tell me, Mickey?” she complained. “I always tell you everything!”

He bit his lip. “I was not expecting him to ask me out,” he said.

So typical of Mickey. Her brother was thick when it came to romantic stuff. It had been obvious to her since the evening in the parking lot, that Emil was interested in him.

“You’re so dumb,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *arrives two days late with starbucks and a new chapter* I kept you waiting because I just couldn't find the time to edit and upload it, sorry.  
> Anyway, thank you to everyone who's leaving kudos and comments! I love every single one of you


	5. Chapter 5

The evening was nice and pleasant. Sara was waiting for Mila outside the restaurant, like the evening before. She made a mental note of having dinner there, at least once. It was a nice French restaurant, with a few tables outside and dim lights. When Mila saw her, as she came out of the place, she trotted towards her.

“Thank you so much for coming!”

“It’s always nice seeing you,” said Sara. “But I’ll admit I can’t imagine what you need to ask me.”

Mila took a deep breath. “First, I’ll explain everything. Then, I’ll ask you one question.”

She told her about her problems since she came out to her family, how they told her, over and over again, that it was only a phase, that she would eventually pick a side – and for them the only option was choosing a man, obviously. The incessant laments of her mother about how strongly she wanted grandchildren. And then she told Sara about their plans to set her up with a stranger.

“And that’s where the big question comes,” said Mila. They were headed towards Mila’s home. “Would you be willing to pretend to be my girlfriend and try to make the meeting as awkward as possible? I know it’s a really weird request-“

“I’ll do it,” said Sara, interrupting her.

“What? Really? Don’t you want to think about it, first?”

“No. I’m mad right now. Like- what the hell? How dare you say these things to your daughter?” snapped Sara, gesticulating furiously. “Of course I’m down for it.”

Mila let out a deep sigh of relief. “Thank you, Sara. I just want to make them regret organizing this thing.”

“I understand. We can also make out in front of your parents, if you want to.”

Mila, who had just taken the keys out of her bag, jerked and threw the keys in her face. She picked them up, blushing intensely.

“I don’t think that’s gonna be necessary,” she said, in a squeaky voice.

“Just wanted to let you know,” replied Sara, cheerfully.

Mila forced herself to turn and face Sara, despite how awkward she felt, and gestured towards the door. “By the way, do you… do you want to come up and have, I don’t know, tea? Maybe we can discuss this thing further.”

Sara smiled. “I really like this idea.”

Mila’s knees felt like jelly, as she walked upstairs, leading Sara to her apartment. She remembered Viktor too late, but when she walked through the door, he was not there. He was probably floating around the building. Sara, instead of looking for a chair, jumped on the counter and sat there.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“Not at all!”

She watched in silence as Mila filled a small pot with water and put it on the stove, waiting for it to boil.

“It’s nice here!” said Sara after a while. “I really like that poster,” she added, pointing at Le chat noir.

“Thank you. It’s a gift from a friend. I asked him to bring me that poster, since he was going to Paris,” explained Mila.

She handled Sara a cup. “Do you want sugar?”

“Yes, please.”

Having Sara in her house made Mila a bit tenser that she had expected. It felt somehow intimate, despite the fact that she had been living there for a month or so. It was not really her _home_ yet. It was still a temporary nest, but letting Sara into the apartment made it feel more hers. Seeing her sitting on the counter, cup of tea in her hands, felt incredibly domestic.

 _“I really want to kiss you,”_ she thought.

She always had to remind herself to slow down and let her relationships develop. The last time she rushed into one was with Otabek – they had dated for a short period of time – and she had found herself in a really awkward situation, when she had decided to dump him. Luckily they had remained friends, but for a while she had felt really guilty around him.

She was determined to not make a mess, this time.

Still, Sara in her oversized sweater and holding a green cup was one of the prettiest sight she had ever seen.

“I’m sorry coming out to your parents turned out like this,” said Sara. “It’s hard for me imagining a situation like that.”

Mila shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”

Sara looked at her critically. “Don’t just dismiss it like it’s nothing.”

She shrugged again. For a while, she had been really hurt by some of her parent’s comments, but now they mostly annoyed her. They never created anything new. Also, and that was not a secondary issue, she had grown more confident over the years.

“Mine were really cool with it. Both with me and Michele,” said Sara.

Mila almost chocked on her tea. “You _and_ Michele are both gay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good thing your parents didn’t have a problem with that. Otherwise, they would have had a stroke,” said Mila, laughing.

Sara giggled too and Mila felt her face get warmer. As they went on chatting, Mila almost forgot to drink her tea, and when she remembered it, it was lukewarm.

“You know,” said Sara. “There’s one secret that I keep. I haven’t even told Mickey about it.”

Mila listened with anticipation. “What secret?”

“I can’t tell you,” she replied with a cheeky smile.

Mila let out a frustrated moan. “You can’t tease me like that! Now I’m gonna think about this for the whole week! Please, tell me what it is,” she pleaded.

“No. Because you’d think I’m crazy,” explained Sara. “First you have to know me better and realize that I’m not. This way, when I tell you, maybe you’ll believe me.”

And she drank the last sip of her tea. Mila looked at her cup in disbelief, as her mind processed what had been an admission from Sara that she wanted to deepen their relationship. Sara, in the meantime, was enjoying seeing Mila so frustrated and taken aback.

After a while, Sara checked the time and decided it was time to go for her.

“So, see you this weekend?” she asked.

“Most probably, yes.”

Sara clutched her purse and stood right outside the apartment. “Then… bye, Mila.”

“It was nice having you here.”

Sara smiled and headed towards the stairs. She turned and waved one last time, before disappearing. Mila did not take her eyes off her until she went down the stairs. Then, she leaned on the wall and sighed.

“You have it bad, girl,” said a voice behind her.

She had to put a hand on her mouth to avoid screaming. Viktor was back from his walk around the building and he had arrived in time to see the two girls say goodbye. And of course he had to make comments.

“Viktor! Do you want me to have an heart attack?”

“Sorry.”

She went to bed. The next day, as she was having lunch, her phone started ringing. Mila read the name on the display.

 _“Here we go,”_ she thought.

Obviously her mother didn’t immediately jump to the invitation. But after a couple of minutes of ‘how is university going?’ and ‘how is work?’, she finally asked if she wanted to have lunch with them and a few other guests that Sunday. So Mila had to fake surprise and accepted the invitation.

She then called Sara, right after class.

“This Sunday, at half past twelve, at The Seaside Table.”

“Got it.”

*****

Sunday came earlier than expected. When Mila woke up, she was already nervous and regretting inviting Sara.

 _“This was a bad idea,”_ she told herself.

Not only she feared she was going to fall harder for Sara, but she also felt guilty for involving her in her plan. Sara had nothing to do with her parents. On the other hand she had looked very passionate, when Mila had told her about her life with her parents. She really hoped she didn’t feel forced to come with her.

She got dressed with particular care that morning, instead of putting on the usual jeans and t-shirt. He mom loved seeing her in nice dresses and skirts, so she put on her dress pants and a blazer. Satisfied with the result, she texted Sara to know when she was coming. Sara had proposed to use her car and Mila had gracefully accepted the proposal. It would have made it easier to go away if things escalated, but it was also another reason for Mila to feel guilty.

_“I’m gonna be there at 12.15. Be ready!”_

Mila was ready. She was already pacing the floor, nervous and unsure about how to pass the time as she waited for Sara to pick her up. She eventually decided to clean the apartment, as she listened to Viktor talk about Russia in the nineteenth century.

At ten past twelve, her phone ringed.

_“I’m here.”_

“I’m coming.”

Sara was waiting for her on the opposite side of the road. Mila took advantage of the time in the car to remind Sara a few details about her family, like her parents job, relatives and interests. There was actually not a lot that Sara didn’t remember or didn’t know: they had discussed about it a lot, the evening Sara had come to her house.

When they reached their destination, right before they got out of the car, Sara grabbed Mila’s hand and squeezed it.

“Let’s do this,” she said as an encouragement.

Mila nodded.

She immediately spotted, in the distance, her mother’s hair, red as hers, only with a lot more grey stripes. She had her back to her and was talking to a guy she had never met, surely the one they wanted to set her up with. She took a deep breath and walked towards her parents. She saw her uncle and aunt too, and a couple of her dad’s friends, who had probably came along with her unknowing suitor. Yurio was there too with his parents. He waved and she waved back. As usual, he was wearing his black jeans and a jacket with a leopard print on it.

It was the first time she saw her parents since she moved out and she was intimidated. Sara put a hand on the small of her back.

“C’mon,” she whispered.

Mila wondered if Sara was aware of how much that gesture fired her up.

“Hi, mom! I’m here!”

Her mom turned with a sincere smile and went to hug her daughter.

“Kitty! Come here, let me hug you!”

Mila was glad to see her mother, but the tension spoiled the moment. Her mom could probably feel her heart pounding in her chest. After getting free from the hug, her mom turned to Sara with a puzzled look.

“And who is she? A friend from university? She gave you a lift?” she asked.

Mila felt her mouth completely dry, as she tried to answer. Sara realized that she was having problems and took the matter into her hands.

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Babicheva. My name is Sara, I’m your daughter’s girlfriend,” said Sara with the brightest of smiles.

Mila saw something freeze in her mother’s eyes. Well, it was too late to abort the mission, now.

“I hope you don’t mind that I brought her along,” said Mila, quickly. “I thought it was the right occasion to introduce you.”

“Well, you… you could have told us,” said her mother. She was having a hard time articulating words.

“Sorry.” She didn’t even try to find and excuse to why she didn’t tell them she was bringing Sara along.

Sara was standing close to her, a little too close, but she appreciated that. At that point, the other guests had seen what was going on, but they were waiting for the three of them to approach them. Her dad stopped talking with his friends and got closer.

“My Mila!” he exclaimed, putting a hand on her head and ruffling her hair. She hadn’t grown enough to surpass him and he could still pick her up without effort. But at least she had inherited his strength.

“Hi, dad,” she said meekly.

He turned to Sara, but he already sensed that something was off. After all the years spent with his wife, he could perfectly read her body language.

“Is everything alright, Eteri?” he asked his wife.

Sara stretched out her hand and waited for her dad to do the same.

“Nice to meet you, sir! My name is Sara and I’m your daughter’s girlfriend,” she said, after shaking hands with him.

Mila could see her father stiffen.

“Oh, “ he said.

“We have been dating for a month, now,” said Mila. “I think I should introduce her to the others.”

The ‘others’ she wanted to introduce Sara to were just Yuri and her suitor. The only comment Yurio made was one about her good taste, in Russian, that Sara couldn’t understand. She looked at a blushing Mila with a perplexed smile and Mila quickly translated.

Her suitor, whose name was Andrew, was wearing a white shirt and treated Yuri like a child. She had observed their interactions and when she had heard a snippet of their conversation, before interrupting them, she had heard Andrew use the kind of condescending tone that Yuri hated. Yuri also looked grumpier than usual and his body language suggested hostility. She had to tell herself not to judge Andrew from that, but her protective instinct towards Yuri made her feel defensive.

“Mila! Your parents have told me about you. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, shaking her hand and almost crushing it.

 _“Did they tell you about the part where you fall in love with me?”_ she thought.

“It’s a pleasure for me too, Andrew,” she said.

He turned to Sara. “Nobody told me you would have brought a guest.”

“She’s my girlfriend, Sara,” explained Mila.

She saw how he was taken aback, at first, but he quickly recovered. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yuri’s perplexed expression and made a subtle gesture, to tell him that she would have explained later. He raised an eyebrow and went back to looking at his phone.

It was finally time to have lunch. Her mother had to ask for another seat, while she tried to escape the questions about who her daughter had brought along. Seeing her struggling to find good explanations, that left out the part where Sara was her girlfriend, for Sara’s presence, made Mila feel slightly guilty. It was, after all, her mother that she was putting in that situation.

Quickly the guilt was overshadowed by satisfaction: her plan was working and her parents would have thought twice, next time, before trying something like that again.

It was finally time for lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (so i decided to move the updating dy from wednesday to friday)  
> Thank you to everyone who's leaving kudos and comments! I love you all, guys


	6. Chapter 6

By the time the dishes came, everybody knew that Sara was Mila’s girlfriend. The other guests acted indifferent, pretending they didn’t know it. Andrew was surprisingly cool about the whole situation and Mila was happy about that. She only wanted to stir up drama with her parents and the more people were left out of it, the better.

She felt… kind of sorry that she didn’t like him. Despite his attitude towards teenagers and his tendency to infantilize them, he seemed nice and he could carry a conversation about a lot of topics. But apart from an enjoyable chat, she felt like they had nothing more to share.

On her left, Sara was apparently having the time of her life. Mila’s parents were sitting in front of them and they could not escape the stream of words coming from Sara, who was right now talking about her life in Italy. Without breaking eye contact with her mom, Mila slowly put an arm around Sara’s shoulders. Eventually, Eteri was the one who looked away.

Things went smoother than she had thought. Her creative mind had imagined dramatic scenarios, but in the end there was only a tense atmosphere and nothing really striking happened. Only once she saw one of her dad’s friends looking at them with a strange expression, but he didn’t say anything.

If Mila had really understood how her parents worked, that meant that they were going to ignore the lunch and act like it never happened, but they would have never done something like this again. She hoped that.

Only when she was back in Sara’s car she started to breathe.

“Shit,” she said. “Well, that went better than expected.”

Sara laughed, fastening the seatbelt. “Were you hoping for drama? Shouting, fighting, and an epic showdown in the middle of the restaurant?”

“Hell, no.”

Sara drove her home.

 _“Maybe she’ll ask me to spend more time together,”_ thought Sara.

Mila was tempted to ask Sara if she wanted to spend some time in her apartment with her, but she realized she didn’t have an excuse to invite her. No parents to talk about or plans to make.

 _“Maybe in another occasion,”_ thought Mila.

So they simply said goodbye. Mila went up to study and Sara drove home to Michele, both disappointed that the other hadn’t proposed to do something together. Mila started cursing herself the moment she got off the car. She didn’t really need an excuse to spend some time to Sara.

She was able to take her mind off the topic of Sara quite fast. When she came into the apartment, she found a Viktor so panicked that he forgot the no-touching rule and tried to grab her shoulders, causing Mila to shiver.

“Viktor, what’s happening?” she asked.

“We were supposed to go in Italy!” he exclaimed. “We were supposed to leave and live together there, but we didn’t and he went back to his country! And I can’t remember _why_ we didn’t go!”

He looked really distressed, but Mila didn’t know what to do to calm him down. He was pacing the floor, metaphorically, and he walked a couple of times through her, while she took off her shoes and her coat. He kept mumbling stuff about Italy and plans him and his lover had made together, but these were only bits and pieces he couldn’t link.

“Viktor, I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “Maybe if you remember everything you’ll be able to… die? Completely?”

“I know I’m going to die soon, finally. But this is getting very frustrating,” he moaned. “I just want answers.”

Mila bit her lip.

“But why are you remembering all of this now? Is it some kind of magic?”

He tilted his head. “I don’t know, Mila. I just know that you presence helps me remember my life.”

She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

“Why, Italy, though?” she asked.

“I don’t remember.”

She wanted to talk with him a little longer, but Viktor was clearly done.

He could not stay in the apartment any longer. He started going around the building, restless and upset. He still didn’t remember a name, a face, but at least now he had something. An event. Now, he needed a reason. A reason to justify the fact that he didn’t leave with his lover and that he had gone back to Russia. He couldn’t think of one.

*

Mila, Otabek and Emil were studying in the library when Emil dropped the bomb.

“Saturday, I went on a date,” he said with a grin.

“Really?” said Otabek, without lifting his eyes from the book.

Mila, on the other hand, immediately closed her book and stared at Emil. “Tell me more.”

“Guess who was my date.”

Mila groaned and rolled her eyes. “I don’t wanna guess, I wanna _know_ ,” she complained. Otabek gestured them to lower their voices.

Emil chuckled. “Okay, no need to get all dramatic,” he said. “I went on a date with Michele Crispino.”

Mila’s jaw dropped. “No, you didn’t!”

“Yes, I did.”

Otabek sighed. “I guess we’re not studying anymore? If we want to chat, maybe we should go to the cafeteria.” He looked around. “People are starting to get annoyed.”

Mila and Emil agreed: it was more enjoyable to chat in front of a cup of coffee or tea. So they moved to the cafeteria next to the library.

“Okay,” said Mila, sitting at the table in front of Emil. ”Now, tell me everything.”

Otabek glanced at both of them and then put away his textbooks with a sigh, giving up on studying. He should have given up on it the moment Emil had brought up the topic of his date. He knew how easy it was to distract Mila. He stirred his tea a couple of times and then sat back, listening to his friends.

“Well, we went to this nice Chinese restaurant, near the train station…” started Emil.

Of course, thought Otabek. Emil always brought his dates to ethnic restaurants. He loved trying new dishes and he believed the coolest place you could eat at with a date was a Ethiopian restaurant. He had a different opinion, since he didn’t care about food that much, but, well, Emil had never asked him out, so that was not an issue.

Emil and Michele had gone bowling after dinner. And Michele turned out to be a pretty skilled bowling player, who had easily beaten Emil.

Mila started laughing. “Finally, someone who can beat you! There _is_ some justice in this world.”

Otabek smirked, as Emil started to make up excuses for why he had lost.

“Mila, is your phone ringing?” he asked, hearing a ringtone. Mila reached into her backpack and saw Sara’s name on the screen.

“Sara! How are you doing?” she exclaimed, answering.

_“Hi, Mila! I’m fine, thank you. Listen, me and Michele wanted to invite you and Emil to have dinner with us. You’re free Monday evening, right?”_

Sara sounded like she had rehearsed that line a lot of times.

“Yeah, I am. I would love to!” she said. “I’m with Emil, right now. Do you want me to ask him if he’s free?”

_“Yeah, please! Let me know if he comes!”_

“You could ask him yourself,” she said, looking at Emil. The guy tilted his head and she gave him the phone, saying that it was Sara. His face lit up.

“Sara!” he exclaimed. “How are you doing?”

Mila watched him get more and more excited. She told herself that, if there was a limit to the amount of excitement a human could feel, Emil was pretty close to it. He kept nodding and making suggestions for their evening, so eventually she had to take her phone back by force. They exchanged goodbyes and Mila was finally able to put away her phone. In front of her, Emil was beaming.

“I can’t believe we’re already having a double date!” he said.

Mila almost chocked on her tea.

“It’s not a double date!” she protested.

Emil raised an eyebrow. “ _Yes_ , it is a double date. You don’t need to try and hide your big, fat crush, Mila. Sara’s been the main topic of ninety percent of your conversations, in the last month.”

Mila stared at her drink, unable to find a witty comeback. Otabek patted her on the shoulder, a gesture she couldn’t interpret.

“I don’t even know if she likes me,” said Mila, meekly.

“Well,” replied Emil. “She came to your restaurant, without warning. At the very least, she doesn’t dislike you.”

“True,” she admitted. Emil smirked.

Irrationally, she always took for granted that the person she was interested in, did not like her back. But she had, like in this case, her friends to act as the voice of reason. Sara did enjoy her company, there was no reason to doubt that. But what she could not understand, was if Sara was harboring the same feelings.

*

Monday finally arrived and Mila was busy choosing an outfit with Victor’s help. The ghost had been particularly stressed lately, since he remembered that he had left his lover, but not the explanation. She had done everything in her power to distract him, also because he was disturbing her sleep. He walked around the house during the night, moving glasses and books around, and waking her up every time he made something fall. Her plan to make him relax was working. A little.

She heard the phone ringing. It was Sara and she wanted to ask if Mila wanted to go pick a couple of items at the supermarket with her.

 _“Me and Mickey were checking the fridge and saw that a couple of things are missing for today’s dinner,”_ she explained. _“And I wondered if you wanted to come with me… if you’re ready.”_

Mila still needed to get dressed, but spiritually she was already out of the door.

“Gimme five minutes and I’m ready,” she said and hung up.

Mila grabbed the nearest dress on the bed and quickly changed, then she took purse, keys and went out. She had to wait for a while, though. Right when she was out of the apartment block, she received a text from Sara.

_“You hung up too quickly… I still need to get to your house, so don’t rush.”_

Mila laughed at herself for not thinking about that and sat patiently in front of the building, not caring about how dirty her dress could get. When Sara finally came, she jumped in the car and they drove off to the supermarket.

“Your dress is lovely!” said Sara, as soon as she saw Mila.

It was a little dress of different shades of blue, tightened around her waist with a light blue ribbon. She was wearing black tights and boots underneath. The dress was a bit old, but she didn’t wear it very often. Only when she felt comfortable enough.

“It’s the same color of your eyes…” added Sara, softly.

Mila smiled and whispered a ‘thank you’, her heart racing. It was the first time she heard Sara use such a tender voice. She wondered if that remark had escaped from Sara’s lips inadvertently or if she said it on purpose. She didn’t ask.

“Can you tell me what we’re having for dinner? Or is it a surprise?” asked Mila, as they walked in the store.

“Tonight we’re frying!” declared Sara.

“Frying what?” Her mouth was already watering.

Sara lead her in the canned goods aisle. She still hadn’t told Mila what she was looking for.

“Small pizzas! And we were missing a couple of things to finish the tomato sauce.” She grabbed a jar of olives and then started looking for the spices. “Our mom usually prepares them on special occasions, like when we have guests. Now, she makes them when me and Mickey come home.”

“So it’s like pirozhki for Yurio. The special dish,” pondered Mila. “Only his grandpa makes them. They’re amazing.”

Sara picked up the oregano from the spices section. “You don’t have a special dish in your family?”

Mila thought about it and shook her head. “My mom likes to try new recipes. She always varies a lot. I can’t remember a particular dish she makes on special occasions.”

“Every family is different,” said Sara.

“I guess.”

Sara stood up from the crouching position she was in. The two girls locked eyes. For a moment, Mila felt time freeze, as they stood in front of each other in complete silence. The background music quietly hummed a pop piece, partially covering the noises made by the costumers and their shopping carts. She thought she could read something in Sara’s eyes. A question, maybe? A request?

Mila was suddenly feeling bold. Something in her brain urged her to put her hands on Sara’s cheeks and kiss her there, in the middle of the aisle. And maybe, just maybe, Sara wanted her to do so. She was expecting it.

“Sara…” she said. “I-“

“Excuse me, I wonder if one of you could pass me the cumin? I can’t reach it.”

Both Mila and Sara turned towards the old lady who had just spoken. She pointed to the item she needed. “Sorry to bother you.”

Mila took the cumin and gave it to the lady. “Here it is, ma’am!”

“Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome.”

When she turned back to Sara, her friend was looking for the wallet in her purse.

“Let’s go pay,” she said, heading for the check-out.

Mila followed her, cursing and thanking the ruined atmosphere. Somehow it had felt like the best moment to come clear about her feelings and yet she would have ended up confessing in the middle of a supermarket. Not the most romantic place she could choose.

They went back to the car and drove home, where they found Michele and Emil trying to fry the small pizzas without hurting themselves. To be fair, Michele seemed to know what he was doing. Emil, on the other hand, didn’t. Mila knew he couldn’t even peel an apple without cutting his fingers. So Michele had to fight against the boiling oil and Emil’s enthusiasm, to prevent him from hurting himself.

“We’re home!” said Sara.

Emil went to take the olives and the oregano, allowing Michele to breathe a moment, before pestering him again. Sara offered Mila a glass of white wine and they drank, while watching the two boys finishing cooking.

“You sure Michele doesn’t need help?” whispered Mila, when Michele hit Emil on the arm with a wooden spoon.

“I’m sure.” Sara smiled.

When the food was finally ready, the four of them set the table and started eating. Normally, Mila would have eaten the pizzas with her bare hands, but she wanted to make a good impression and she also wanted to avoid staining the dress. So she opted for using knife and fork. Michele and Sara, on the other hand were skilled in the art of eating the stuff without cutlery. They only used a spoon to put the tomato sauce on the pizzas.

The food was just as good as Mila had imagined and she ended up eating six small pizzas. She had to say no to the dessert, that Emil had brought. Sara seemed proud of Mila for eating that much.

“- and so I joined my first Gay Pride by accident,” finished Emil. It was a story that he liked telling other people. Of when he was going to visit a couple of relatives in a close town and he didn’t know there was going to be the parade that day. It was a really Emil thing to do.

It was almost midnight when Emil decided that it was time for him to go.

“Emil, I’m impressed,” said Mila. “For once, I don’t have to drag you away!”

Emil chuckled. “For once, I’m gonna be a responsible person.”

Mila stretched. “I should go too, then.”

Sara got up from the table. “I’m gonna take you home. Give me a moment, while I look for car keys and shoes.”

Mila didn’t protest.

Once she and Sara got into the car, Mila highlighted that she owed Sara money for all the gas she had wasted on her. Sara laughed.

“It’s not wasted if it’s for you,” she added.

They didn’t say anything for the rest of the trip. It didn’t feel necessary.

Sara listened to the music coming from the radio and Mila listened to all the reasons why it was perfect to ask Sara on an actual date in that exact moment. She needed to know Sara’s feelings. If she was willing to give a shot at a romantic relationship. The risk was developing an attachment to Sara that was not reciprocated. And the last thing she wanted was getting hurt.

She didn’t even realized they reached her home, at first. Sara had to shake her.

“We’re here.”

Mila looked around. “Oh, right.”

She unbuckled her belt, then stopped and took a deep breath.

“Sara, I wanted to ask you something,” she said.

Sara tilted her head and put her hands in her lap. “Tell me.”

Mila took another deep breath. “I need to ask you… Like, these were, like, kind of unofficial, we never said they were-“ She bit her lip. “What I mean is: would you like to, maybe, go on a date with me?”

Sara made a huge smile and put a hand on her mouth. “I thought you’d never ask!”

Mila blinked a couple of time. “Wait, you knew?”

Sara shrugged, still smiling. “Well, it’s not like I knew, but I thought, maybe you liked me? But you never said anything, I thought you were expecting me to read your mind!”

“I thought _you_ wanted me to read your mind!” exclaimed Mila.

“But I came to your restaurant! I told you we could make out in front of your parents!” protested Sara.

They looked at each other in disbelief, but elated. Suddenly, Mila started giggling and Sara joined her, too high on their own feelings to even consider that they were fighting over who should have confessed first.

“Oh, my God,” said Sara between a giggle and the other. “It’s mutual!”

Mila looked out of the car, looked at the dark road in front of her, concentrated on how _good_ she felt. She couldn’t stop giggling. Relief and affection were turning her into an idiot. A happy one.

She didn’t want to go. In that moment, her world started and ended with that car, that dark road and with Sara smiling at her side.

She took the courage she needed to leave.

“Sara, I-“

Before she could finish the sentence, Sara leaned over and pressed a quick peck on her lips, looking guilty immediately after. Her cheeks reddened.

“Sorry, I should have contained myself, I-“

Mila didn’t let her finish too and their lips met again for a brief second.

She didn’t want to indulge in those kisses. It was not the right moment. She whispered a soft ‘ _not now_ ’ and leaned back.

“Where should we go?” said Sara, still blushing.

Mila got lost in her thoughts for a few seconds. She actually hadn’t thought about where to bring Sara. “Do you want me to take you to the art museum?” she proposed.

Sara smiled. “Sounds great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there, guys!  
> I hope you don't mind if I kind of glossed over the lunch, but it was not a key point and I didn't want to drag it more than necessary.  
> Also, I will probably be slower with adding the new chapters, because in a week I'm leaving to study abroad for three weeks. Usually days a pretty full at summer schools, so I'll have to see what I manage to write.  
> Thank you for all the kudos and comments, as usual! :D


	7. Chapter 7

_The house was bare and cold. The thick walls were doing their best to keep out the winter cold. An unusually sparse fog covered the park that could be seen from the window. It was early in the morning and the twilight sky was just starting to lit up and the city was awakening._

_Inside the house, one of the two occupants was already up. He started taking out brushes and other painting materials, then uncovered the canvas he was working on. He had never worked so hard on a painting. It had to be perfect. It was the portrait of a Japanese man looking out of the window of that exact apartment, with a wistful look. A weak smile curled the corners of his mouth and the relaxed curve of the shoulders dressed in white was in contrast with the dark background. The color gave the lips an impression of softness, that pushed the observer to touch the painting and make sure it was really just paint. All the light illuminating the man’s face came from outside the window._

_The man started to work._

_In the other room, the second occupant woke up and stretched. If he moved a little to the left of the bed, he could see the other man painting. He put on his glasses to take in the sight of the other man’s broad shoulders. He wanted him to come back to bed and waste some time curled there together, but he had started working and he knew he wouldn’t have stopped for a few hours. With a sigh, he got out of the bed and got dressed._

_Quietly, he walked up and wrapped his arms around the other._

_“Morning, Vitya,” he whispered._

 

“I’m finally going on a date with Mila!” said Sara.

Yuuri looked up to her and smiled. “I’m happy for you,” he replied. “You’ve talked a lot about this girl.”

She sit beside him, as usual, and started telling him the whole story of how Mila had finally asked her on a date. Lately she had been talking a lot, compared to Yuuri. In the last couple of weeks he had progressively gotten more and more quiet. He also seemed sadder and more pensive. She had the feeling there was stuff he was not telling her. She was not sure if she could push him to share something or if it was better not to. Yuuri was a mystery.

“She’s talking me to the art museum next Saturday,” she explained.

“That’s sounds nice,” said Yuuri. “I once knew a painter.”

She tried to get Yuuri to talk more about that painter, but he said he only remembered knowing him and nothing else.

Their meeting was brief. Sara had nothing more to say and Yuuri didn’t want to talk. So she went home and started counting down the hours till her date with Mila.

 

 

_“Good morning, my love,” said Viktor._

_Yuuri nuzzled his back, taking in the smell of freshly washed fabric and Viktor’s skin. The weeks since their trip to Paris were turning into months, and the two of them were planning another trip. Viktor’s paintings were selling and hopefully they would have had the possibility to travel to Italy._

_“When is it going to be ready?” asked Yuuri, glancing at the painting._

_Viktor meditated a few seconds. “It’s almost finished. A bit of retouching here and there and in a couple of days it’s ready.”_

_Yuuri observed the picture. It was a little too flattering in his opinion, but he didn’t mind. This was clearly the version of him in Viktor’s eyes._

_“Do you need me to pose for a while?” he asked._

_“I could draw you by memory, at this point. Your image is burned into my mind,” answered Viktor._

_Yuuri smiled._

“Should I choose the purple shirt or the yellow one? Which one do you think suits me better?” asked Mila, holding the two articles of clothing.

Victor tapped his chin. “Purple. Yellow doesn’t really suits you.”

“What!?” she exclaimed, offended.

“Sorry, it’s true,” he said.

Mila groaned, ashamed that she was getting fashion advices from a hundred year old ghost. Reluctantly, she put on the purple shirt and a pair of jeans. She still preferred yellow, but she wanted to look her best on that date. She checked her freshly combed hair and the make-up in the mirror.

“See you later, Viktor!” she said, walking out of the apartment.

This time she was taking the bus. She was not letting Sara drive her around, when _she_ was the one who had invited her on a date. She patiently waited for the bus to arrive. They agreed to meet in a small café in front of the museum to have a drink before their visit. The fact that this was an _official_ date made her a bit nervous, but she told herself it was stupid. It was not different from the other times they had gone out together.

When she arrived, she saw Sara already waiting in the café. She could see her through the window. She was looking at the menu, held in one hand, and with the other she was massaging her neck. Her expression was ridiculously serious, for someone who was just deciding what to drink. She stopped rubbing her neck and her hand went to play with her hair, tied back in a ponytail.

There was something tender and yet intrusive about watching someone from afar. Observing their quirks and tics, and how they acted when they thought nobody was looking. It was the first time Mila indulged into this. She saw Sara tell something to the waiter, smiling as always, and then check her phone.

She couldn’t keep her waiting.

The moment Sara saw her walking in the café she got up from her seat and smiled.

“You took your time,” she said, hugging her.

“Blame the bus,” replied Mila. The hug helped her relax a little and she took the opportunity to smell Sara’s scent. It was something citrusy.

She sat down and looked at the menu. Apart from the classics, they had a selection of herbal teas and a few special hot chocolates that were really tempting.

“Have you already decided what you want?” she asked Sara.

“I think I’ll have a hazelnut hot chocolate. What about you?”

Mila let her eyes skim the page once again, undecided about whether to take a herbal tea or a coffee. Eventually, she settled for a caramel macchiato. There was a moment of tension between them. Mila couldn’t shake off her stress.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a bit nervous. It’s-“

“-silly,” finished Sara. She reached across the table and grabbed Mila’s hand. “Mila, relax. Nothing changed since the last time we went out together.”

Mila responded to Sara’s touch and squeezed her hand. “Well,” she said, “something _has_ changed. Now we know how we feel about each other.”

Sara smiled.

 

 

_They knew each other so well. Viktor could recognize Yuuri by the shape of his fingers, and Yuuri Viktor by the touch of his hair. Yuuri passed a hand through Viktor’s locks, indulging in the softness and silky texture, and observed his pale back, tracing with his finger the line of the spine. He loved those quiet moments of the early morning, when the rest of the world was still sleeping and he felt like he and Viktor were the only two people on the planet._

_Viktor turned and groaned in his sleep._

_Yuuri smiled, as he waited for him to wake up. He glanced at the finished painting, that was now waiting to be sold._

 

Sara always liked to keep her voice down in museums, as if she was walking in a sacred place or the loud noises could somehow disturb the works of art. They walked around arm in arm. She let Mila lead her through the building, pointing to each other the most beautiful paintings.

For her part, Mila was finally relaxing a bit. She just needed some time to come to terms with the fact that they were on a date and overcome her performance anxiety. She felt like she had to prove something, since that was an official date. Which was stupid.

She concentrated on the paintings and Sara’s touch.

Mila clearly had a preference for landscapes and pictures of nature. She kept on pointing at those, dragging Sara behind and constantly walking from one end of the room to the other, whenever she spotted something she liked. She almost made Sara trip over another visitor. After the avoided incident, she decided to be a little more careful.

Sara, on the other hand, had a distinct preference for the portraits. Unlike Mila, when she wanted to see a particular one, she gently pulled Mila’s arm. Mila always barely noticed the tug and followed Sara around the room, without realizing she was being pulled.

“Look at the colors on this one,” said Mila, pointing at one. It was a painting of the barren Scottish landscape, after a storm. Grey clouds were still in the sky, but a few rays of sunshine passed through them, illuminating a few spots in the fields of heather. “I wish I could take pictures of these works of art.”

“I wish, too. This way, I can’t even take a picture of you,” sighed Sara.

Mila reflected on what Sara had just said. “Did you just…”

Sara giggled, making Mila blush.

They walked around a little more, slowly approaching the end of the visit.

It was then, when a painting caught Sara’s attention. The author was unknown and it dated back to the late nineteenth century. The title was _Japanese Merchant_. It showed a Japanese man sitting at the window. His face was strangely familiar.

She had to take a step back, when she realized the man in the painting was Yuuri.

“Sara? Is everything okay?” asked Mila, concerned. Sara had gone pale.

“Yeah…” lied Sara.

“Do you want to go home?”

She nodded.

Mila found out Sara actually meant that she wanted to go to Mila’s home and spend some more time together. She cheerfully agreed. Maybe Sara would have explained what had made her freak out at the museum. She didn’t. They took the bus together and halfway through the trip, Sara leaned on Mila and rested her head on her shoulder.

Mila’s heart made a little dance.

They finally arrived at Mila’s house. She offered Sara something to drink, but Sara said she actually needed to use the bathroom. Viktor was not home, again. She had the feeling he was trying to avoid Sara.

“Why don’t we watch something?” asked Sara, coming out of the bathroom.

“I like the idea,” replied Mila, grabbing her laptop.

They lay on the bed, the computer placed on Mila’s stomach. To be more comfortable, Sara turned on her side and put her head on Mila’s shoulder again.

“Is my shoulder that comfy?” asked Mila, with a hint of teasing.

Sara chuckled. “It is.”

They spent a few minutes trying to decide what to watch. There was a TV series Sara wanted Mila to watch, but she couldn’t find a good streaming site. Eventually they found a movie they both agreed on, but Sara was still pouting.

“I really wanted you to see that,” she complained.

Mila placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “We still have other occasions to do so. Unless this was our first and only date,” she joked.

“Of course not!”

Mila found out that it was impossible to watch a movie with Sara in silence. She was always making comments, pointing out the most ridiculous lines and imitating the voices of the actors, to the point where Mila couldn’t follow the movie anymore. She was too busy laughing.

They stopped the movie after a while, because neither of them was following the plot. Mila placed the laptop on the nightstand, gasping for breath.

When she turned back to Sara, the girl had a finger on her lips.

“Did I earn a proper kiss, now?” she asked. “Otherwise, I can make you laugh a bit more.”

Mila laughed again, then placed both hands on Sara’s cheeks and kissed her. Softly, like she had wanted to do for a while. The pecks they had exchanged a few days before didn’t even compare to that kiss.

Sara caressed Mila’s undercut and lazily played with her hair, finally able to touch it. It was as soft as it looked. Every gesture was calm and relaxed, nothing was rushed. They were home, nobody was going to disturb them. They could enjoy the moment and take all the time they needed to relish each other company.

They spent almost half an hour more on the bed, kissing, chatting, then kissing again. Eventually, it was time for Sara to leave and Mila had to get ready for her shift at the restaurant.

“Mila,” said Sara, as she was putting on her jacket.

“Mh?” Mila was too lost in her own bliss to respond properly.

“Do you remember when I told you I have a secret?” she asked, her voice shaking a little.

“Of course. I’ve been trying to imagine what it is for weeks.” She sensed something was wrong. “Is everything okay? You seem nervous. Is the secret that terrible?”

“Well, it’s-“ She licked her lips. “I have met a ghost.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all don't mind the structure of this chapter, I felt like it was the right moment to tell something about Viktor and Yuuri.  
> Also, I fear you'll have to wait for the next chapter. And with this one finishing on a sort of cliffhanger. Sorry.  
> As usual, thank you to everyone leaving kudos and comments!


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